In many areas of manufacturing, products are coated with a protective coating. The protective coating may be used to prevent corrosion, damage from scratching, etc. Some protective coatings are air-dried to cure the coating. However, heat may also be used to cure a coating. There are many types of coating materials and types. For example, there are liquid coatings and dry granular coatings. Coatings may require heat to set/cure the coating. The heat may be applied before or after the coating is applied.
Methods of heating a work piece to set/cure a coating include flame heating, resistive heating elements, and induction heating. With flame heating, a torch is used to apply heat to the work piece. However, it is difficult, if not impossible, to accurately control the temperature of the work piece/coating using this method. Therefore, the coating may not cure or set properly. Resistance heating methods produce a flow of electrical current through a heating element to produce the heat. Typically, the resistive heating element is placed on the work piece to enable heat to be transferred to the work piece by conduction. Thus, the resistive heating elements must be removed before applying the coating to the surface. In addition, once the resistive heating elements reach their steady-state temperatures, they typically must be allowed to cool before they can be removed from the work piece. This may add considerable time to the coating process. Typically, induction heating systems utilize a clam-shell design that extends over the work piece. However, these clam-shell design typically are large and cumbersome and also must be removed to enable the coating to be applied.
There is a need, therefore, for a technique for coating a work piece and for applying heat to cure or set the coating that does not have the problems associated with the techniques described above. Specifically, there is a need for a technique to enable a work piece to be heated and a coating applied “on-the-fly.”